Rankings Change! Deal With It.

For those of us who keep a steady watch on organic search engine rankings, we see them change frequently, apparently inexplicably. Expert Stoney deGeyter, on Search Engine Guide says “A site may gain or lose rankings on a daily bases due to algorithm changes, a dropped or added link, or a site is added or removed from the search engine’s index. Some ranking changes can be traced to a particular event while others occur for what seems like no particular reason. In essence, rankings change because change happens.”

That is certainly not good news for a business owner who is trying to manage his/her own organic rankings. We recently had a client’s relevancy score drop right across the board – for no apparent reason. Due to the fact that we have 12 Senior Geeks, they were able to figure it out, but not without some turmoil and lots of discussion. And not to forget trying 20 different things before we got to the bottom of it. Stoney goes on to say “But understanding what causes typical loss of rankings can give us a better insight into sea of search engine ranking fluctuations. This insight can help you prevent serious long-term effects caused by a sudden drop in search engine rankings. While we can never prevent all losses of search engine rankings, understanding the reasons why changes occur can, at least, help you make your presence in search results more stable.

Reasons for ranking changes can be boiled down to three basic events: 1) Your site changes, 2) a competitor’s site change, or 3) the search engine algorithm changes.”

In this case it was a change of algorithm, specifically from Google. Seems they have been quite busy since Bing! launched. Even for a Company like Google, whom I think most of us have a great deal of respect for, I guess there’s nothing like a good competitor to drive change.

But the key point that Stoney makes is to have an SEO expert on your team at all times. We must all decide what the key role of our websites are, but they should always have an organic ranking priority. In other words, no matter your strategy, SEO is crucial in today’s marketplace. It has been a misunderstood “ugly sister” to web development, yet it is at the core of every site. Since Wen 2.0 hit, it has consistently forced itself upon every website owner – like it or not. But give the rest of Stoney’s Blog a good read. He talks about stuff we all need to know.

The Top 10 Essential Social Media Stories This Week

From an image editing disaster by Microsoft to Yelp’s () augmented reality application to a rehab center for Internet addicts, it’s been a busy week in web news. Our friends at Mashable.com cover it well. We were blown away by Facebook’s () latest iPhone app and shocked by a new ad campaign that informs drivers of the dangers of texting while driving. Less shocking: a new study suggested that social media users are somewhat narcissistic.

Social Marketing – Use At Your Own Risk

The launch of the Nissan Cube, engineered by Capital C of Toronto is a classic case of using a new medium with an old marketing mindset. This article from Marketing Magazine outlines what went well and what went off the rails. I’m more interested in why it went that way.

I speak to all who will listen about the transformation of thinking that is required (not just nice to have) in order to thrive in the Google Era. If we simply apply a mass marketing mentality to a one-to-one marketplace we are going to be line-dancing to a fast tango track. People will notice. The best way we have explained this is our Hunt AND Be Hunted theory. I will explain.

When large media firms control access to the highly sought “eyeballs”, charging hefty dollars for access, our only option is to SPEND, HUNT and HOPE – that is spend a lot in advertising, promotion and sales efforts,  hunt for customers constantly, and hope they remember us when it comes time to buy. An inefficent system for sure, but in a mass marketing world, that was all we had. Enter the Google Era. Now when consumers need something, they search online, do their homework and make their decision. Marketing is simple in this era – you are either there when they search, or you are not. If you are not, your competition gets the sale.

So the shift in mindset is fundamental: ask yourself how can I make it easier for consumers to find me when they want me? We no longer have to spend a fortune to chase millions in order to do enough business with a handful of prospects. Have you learned to BFOUND? Have you made the marketing mindshift needed to not create a situation like Nissan and Capital C? Perhaps the mess they made was due to applying a mass marketing mentality to execute a one-to-one conversation with millions of people. We must realize they are individuals. They can be a fan – or they can tell their communities about their negative experience. Social media – use at your own risk, but you have a much better chance if you make the mental shift and learn to be real with people, instead of the old corporate-speak we have been used to.

Bounce Rates: Why they are Important and What You Can Do.

Bounce rate

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Bounce Rate)

Bounce rate (sometimes confused with exit rate)[1] is a term used in web site traffic analysis. It essentially represents the percentage of initial visitors to a site who “bounce” away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.

The formula used to calculate bounce rate is: Bounce Rate = Total Number of Visits Viewing One Page ÷ Total Number of Visits

Your website is at the very least an intelligent interactive brochure for your business, and at best, the center of your business development strategy. So your bounce rate is a very important statistic. We will explain.

Google Analytics is an effective tool to learn what’s happening with your website and gaining access to it is simple and easy. We are always amazed how many new clients are not even aware it exists. Good data allows for good decisions and a business lives or dies based on the decisions we make every day. Google Analytics removes the guesswork -with no cost!

Now lets examine why they bounce.

1. Is your site content what they were looking for? Google looks for relevancy so is your site relevant to the visitor?
2. Have you performed proper Search Engine Optimization? Are your keywords, Titles, meta tags & descriptions worded correctly? Do they represent the content of the page?
3. Is the page well designed by a professional art director who understands how to guide a visitor through the page and communicate your message?
4. Do your keywords and phrases match exactly with your Adword ads? The phrasing and words you use are extremely important. You have to accurately represent the content of the landing page (the page you link your Adword to) in just 95 characters. The keyword or phrase you are targeting must be in the headline of the ad.
5. Is the quality of the content valuable and insightful? If the wisdom or message is weak, your bounce rate will be high. Visitors value their own time and they will not waste time reading stuff that makes no difference or that they can find on a host of different sites they have already been to. Quality content is critical. No blah, blah, blah. People tune it out – aka: bounce.

Google Analytics do not use length of time spent on the site to determine bounce rates. So, if a visitor stays on your Home page for 5 minutes and does not go to any other part of the site, Google considers that a bounce. Someone that might have come in and stayed on that page for 10 seconds and went to another page will not be categorized as a bounce. http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=81986

You must closely examine why a bounce occurs, and evaluate it for every page based on every keyword and phrases used. That is a lot of combinations, but it is important. If a visitor arrived at your home page, you must entice them inside the site using links, sidebar titles or an incentive to click on another page. The other option is not to land them on your home page. Land them on the page where all the relevant content is. If they like that page, chances are good you can attract them to other pages within the site. Remember, they must visit more than 1 page on your site in order for Google to count them as not bounced.

We have weekly analytic meetings with every one of our clients. It provides our “marching orders” for future actions and helps us stay focussed on the original campaign objectives. After all, you cannot manage what you cannot measure.

5 Practical Ways to Build Traffic to a New Website

It can be depressing to do all the work required to build a great website, only to have no traffic. “Build it and they will come” does not apply online either. We offer up 5 relatively simple actions you can take (we call them Digital Bees™) you can do  today to help drive traffic to your site.

1. Set Up a Blog
We know blogging isn’t for everyone, but it’s a proven way to build relevant content at your site on a consistent basis. And remember, Google’s only reason for being is to “help X find what X wants, when X wants it” (X being every individual on the planet). So relevant content really helps Google point people to your site. It also gives your visitors / customers a reason and an opportunity to engage with you. A caveat though -  please no “corporate-speak” Be real. Don’t be afraid to discuss your mistakes and what you’ve learned from them as well as your strong points and advantages.

2. Use Article Marketing
Article marketing is, in essence, trading your words for links. It can certainly help with link building, but often the quality of the links are questionable. Having said that, it is free and we have certainly used it successfully for many of our clients. Here’s how it works: Write an informative article on your site topic (or something related). Include an “about the author” section as well as links in the article that point to your pages using relevant anchor text (preferably your sought after keywords). Then submit the article through one of the many article syndication services (such as EZineArticles.com or GoArticles.com ). Anybody can publish your article on their website – provided they use the article in its original format including the “about the author” section. So when the article is published, any links you include back to your site are published as well.

3. Generate Trusted Directory Links
Google (and other search engines) like it when credible sources link to your site. It is known in the Internet community as link building. Although it tends to be a long-term strategy there are some free listing as well as some very effective paid ones that would make a difference. Our friends at SEOmoz published a good list that remains relevant.

4. Use Pay Per Click Advertising
For new websites, with no history and few links, it is often a long tedious process to “ramp up traffic”. We have often used paid search campaigns to get a new site site in front of the right audience immediately. It also allows you to do your homework and find out which keywords work and which ones you should drop. We recommend that you start small, watch, listen, learn and build your ROI. Google has some great tools to help you do your keyword research to find lower-cost keywords to get you started. Cut your teeth on keywords that are not as sought after (therefore expensive) before going after the big traffic keywords. Take those on when you have more skill and feel you can risk some marketing dollars. It is more difficult to get a decent ROI on some keywords that are popular in your marketplace.

5. Do the Basic SEO
Google reports there are over a trillion URLs on the web, yet only 3% are opmimized for search engines. Simple things like submitting site maps so the search engines know where to look on your site, through to setting up proper H1, H2 and H3 headings and filling out individual page meta tags. Many developers, don’t want to do the extra work, so most new sites get posted “as is”. More often than not, Google, Yahoo, MSN (or the new Bing!) do not even know your site exists. A little SEO goes a long way to generating traffic.

An extra bonus tip is to be sure to place Google Analytics on your site so you can track what’s working and what’s not. The data is almost instant and lets you know what’s really going on with your new site.

Top 15 Most Popular Web 2.0 Websites

Here are the 15 Largest Web 2.0 Websites Websites ranked by a combination of Inbound Links, Google Page Rank, Alexa Rank, and U.S. traffic data from Compete and Quantcast. Although no traffic metrics are completely accurate we do believe the data below to be useful for gauging relative audience size. Brought to you by the good folks at eBizMBA

Cheating For a Living

The mood of the online community can get ugly at times. Mobile Crunch recently posted an article calling out Reverb Communications, a PR firm who work with several leading App developers for the iPhone. The writer, Gagan Biyani, chastised them for seeding positive reviews in the App Store for their client’s Apps. It is a clear breach of ethics, yet the comments are quite interesting. Seems the average reader has become quite apathetic, many believing that this is to be expected! Seems our tolerance for rogues is diminishing. Some even state that they would hire this firm as they obviously know how to produce results.

One even likened it to the way Obama used Social Media in his Presidential campaign. Certainly a stretch. White Hat eMarketing firms operate within the parameters set by the search engines and the social sites, ensuring that their clients are easily found when their prospects are looking for them. Legitimate firms do not use link farms or any “Black Hat tactics” to improve their client’s visibility. They simply optimize (thus the commonly used term Search Engine Optimization) their clients so they can easily be found online.

The World Wide Web is made up of people. Human beings, with all of the good, the bad and the ugly. So it stands to reason that “buyer beware” applies. But make no mistake – we would choose not do business with a firm that conducts itself like Reverb does – results at any cost is not an acceptable business practice for us. So please folks, keep outing companies that consider this acceptable practice and let each of us make our own decisions whether we choose to be involved with them or not. There is a line and we all know when we have crossed it.

Your Google Ranking – A Strategic Business Asset?

During a recent conversation with a client, it dawned on me (I can be slow on the uptake at times) that if you rank in the top 3 spots for THE keyword that people use for your industry, your Google rank might be the most valuable asset of your company. I will explain.

This particular client is in the web development business in Toronto. During our update meeting, the owner of the firm mentioned that they had just hired the Art Director and Lead Programmer from their most fierce competitor. He went on to explain that this competitor was extremely busy right up to the day they turned the keys over to the receiver! If they were busy, then they must have had a strong sales force, so I asked what happened to them. The Art Director who was now working with us, said the former partners did most of the selling. In fact he said all they did was follow up the leads they get by being 1st when you Google “web development toronto”. New business was never an issue.

I was on the phone to the receiver within minutes looking to buy that URL so the leads would come to us. Alas, one of the Partners was smart enough to have owned that URL personally, so it was not formally an asset of the business. But the incident made me think.  The organic keyword ranking of the most common used terms for your industry, may well be THE most valuable asset a small business can own. The leads and traffic that comes with that ranking is worth a great deal to your competitors. And if the laws of supply and demand remain true, once those top 3 rankings are taken and the owners do what they must to protect their ranking, then supply is very limited and demand (therefore value) goes up.

Most businesses place little or no value on their ranking. In fact most have no idea what THE most common search term is for their products or services. By the time they wake up to the new realities of marketing, it may well be too late. It takes a lot less effort and investment to own the words when your competitors are asleep. Once competition for those words heats up…

L.E.A.P. – The Basic Principles of Online Marketing

None of us will miss the irony in the acronym L.E.A.P. when we speak of how your Enterprise should approach the Internet in terms of marketing. Many have indeed jumped with with little forethought, only to be sent packing by the Communities they offended. L.E.A.P. allows you to ease yourself into a conversation that is already underway. Would you arrive at a party and just burst in a room full of people who are already in the midst of many conversations, expecting them all to acknowledge your “arrival”? or would you…

Listen for awhile? Would you park yourself in a small group and listen long enough to get the drift of the discussion, form an opinion that supports your Corporate point of view and then…

Engage. Offer up ideas and counsel. Give away wisdom and authentically offer up information that will make a difference for others. People only do business with people they perceive to be experts or friends. And if you’re not a friend…

Assimilate yourself into their conversation and offer up solutions and assistance. Protecting Intellectual Property is old-school thinking. If you hide your primary contribution under a bushel, nobody knows you have one. Other online participants who offer it up, will be more likely to make the short list when it comes time to buy – even if it is not as good as yours. And then there is consistency. You must…

Participate on a regular basis. You cannot jump in, disappear for a few months and then come strolling back in. Ongoing participation, engaging with online communities in a respectful manner, listen and contributing – in other words, play by “sandbox rules” and all will turn out well.

Reduce Marketing Costs While Growing Your Business

Marketing and Innovation are the keys to business success. Lowering your marketing costs without screwing up your ability to grow may sound like an oxymoron, but if you follow these 5 steps, it can be done:

1. Outsource Your Marketing

To execute successful marketing program today requires skills in multiple disciplines – both online and off. Chances are, if your staff are strong with media and production, they are weak in SEO/PPC and Social Media. There is far more to learn in today’s marketing world, mainly due to the dynamic, ever-changing New Media and it’s impact on traditional promotional options. It really is challenging to understand where your marketing dollars are best invested, yet it is critical to the success of your business.

Most small to mid-sized firms simply cannot have all of those skills in-house. Especially when there are hundreds of marketing/communication agencies who have specialists with experience managing effective marketing and emarketing programs, usually across many industries, using all media. Their staff and freelance network provide all of the skills, creativity and proven experience you require.

And you only pay for what you use, rather than having a fixed marketing cost all year round.

2. Find The Right People For The Job

Too many business owners like to play with marketing. It is often considered a “fun” part of business. By hiring professionals you are delegating to someone with the expertise to do it well. Promotion has changed a lot in the past few years. It is far more complex today. You have learned to hunt customers and now you have to learn to be good at being hunted by customers. And thats a whole new ball game. One that you absolutely must play, just to keep up with your competitors. eMarketing Management is the way of the future.

While we applaud the “get it done” attitude of those business owners who try to handle advertising and promotion themselves, it does waste time and often leads to mistakes that professionals know to avoid.

A good marketing/communications firm should save you a lot of wasted time and money and should be held accountable for specific measurable results.

3. If You Cannot Measure It – Cut It

We’ve seen hundreds of campaigns executed, and we’ve yet to see one that was 100% accountable. That is, every aspect of the campaign was measurable and designed to do a specific task. Have a good hard look at every element of your plan. Be sure they all have a clearly stated, measurable result so you can objectively assess their success. Learn from every marketing action you take.

The reason for marketing is sales. Did every element of every campaign result in more sales opportunities? None of us have money to waste on programs that do not drive qualified leads, impact the loyalty of a customer or move a prospect closer to buying.

All marketing worth doing, can and should be measured.

4. Follow Up Every Lead

We’ve also seen a lot of firms work hard, invest smart and generate a ton of qualified leads – with no system for follow-up. Even the hottest of leads go cold. Worse – they go to competitors. If you are not prepared to follow up, please don’t invest the dollars to generate the leads.

Not only are you helping your competitors, you are damaging your own brand. You want to have a reputation for professional, prompt service, not the reverse. Ignoring leads sends a clear message to your prospect.

Even cool leads can be nurtured and developed into qualified, warm leads with a little time and attention. Have a plan for following up every lead and stick to it.

5. Quality Over Quantity

When designing your marketing plans, aim for leads that have a good possibility of conversion to sales. The more you can qualify the lead, the better your return on investment.

We have seen firms hold draws for valuable prizes, adding those names to the database and considering them leads. They did not sign up for more information on your product – they just wanted a chance to win the prize. Measure your marketing success on conversions, not on quantity of leads. Put a premium on quality, not quantity.

If you consistently question everything about your marketing, expect every dollar invested to create a specific, measurable return, and learn to Hunt AND Be Hunted™, you can actually reduce your costs and increase your business.

3 Online Lead Killers

“Sometimes when you’re up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember the original objective was to drain the swamp”. This applies to eMarketing Management as well.

The objective is not to get someone to click on something, or to capture another email address. That’s not a lead. When we trick them into giving us their email address, any further communication is at best SPAM Light. Our objective is to convert visitors into customers. Remember, we are doing all this work to increase sales. We must be sure that everything is relevant to the statement they clicked on.

So we must optimize our Sequence of Thoughts, not a landing page. Our landing page should always try to find the money.

When generating our great ideas and clever solutions, we must continually check our thinking against The 3 Lead Killers. This means we must always make our choices from our visitor’s point of view. The 3 things they are thinking about when they land on our landing page are:

1)  Where Am I? – if our visitor is looking for X, they are likely on a bit of a mission. It’s not really complex – they are looking for X. How we know that for sure, is they found us when they were looking for X. So if our landing page does not deliver on the promise we made to get them to click, they will likely bounce. We should just give them X on the landing page. We don’t have to give them the whole book, just the first paragraph. Info that is so good, they will want more.

2)  What Can I Do Here? – we have to make it clear and make it obvious what we want them to do next. Keep it simple. Make it clear.

3)  Why Should I Do It? – all 3 of these rules are lead-killers, but this one is the one we see broken most often. People only take action if there is a clear benefit. They arrived at where they are because we said something that made them think we have a solution to their problem. Ideally we should give them something that educates or informs, bringing them closer to that solution. The rules of engagement are simple – you value something from me (even my email address), give me something I value (more valuable information about why I visited you in the first place).

So much of this comes back to what we promised in the first place. Our headline and first sentence (all that appears in a Google search line) must perfectly match our landing page content.

Maybe be the best way to manage the 3 Online Lead Killers is to adopt a strict NO SURPRISE policy to your online communications.